


Fear

by keyflight790



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Avada Kedavra, Kidnapping, M/M, POV First Person, Prose Poem, Starvation, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 09:09:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17722310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keyflight790/pseuds/keyflight790
Summary: Draco does not fear death.





	Fear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OTPshipper98](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OTPshipper98/gifts).



I do not fear death.

I fear the life before death.

I fear the actions I have made, the consequences I have faced. I fear the chains, and the locks and the shredded keys and the knife at my throat.

I fear dying.

I fear the cold grip of it against my flesh, seeping into my veins. The way my Captor stares at my skin as if it were a treat, a morsel covered in caramel.

I fear the darkness, but I also fear the sunlight, knowing that with the early strips of morning, He will arrive, cloaked, hardened. A voice dripping with disdain as he prods me, forces me to remember what I have done.

 _Murderer,_ He labeled me during the earliest of days. _Killer._

Through time, his words lost their meaning. So He came up with new ways to torture me.

Whips and knives and heated metal, branding my skin.

As if my skin wasn’t already branded. Marked. Claimed. Owned.

I hadn’t owned my body, my actions for quite some time, but my Jailor does not care. I am easy for him to wound. And so He does.

The cell is cold, damp, but I am given soup, and sometimes stale bits of bread. Enough to keep me fed. Enough to keep me on just this side of death.

At the beginning, I thought I would be saved. That someone somewhere would care, would look for me, would hunt. No one came.

I tried to keep track of the days, whether it was weekend, whether I would have been in Potions or Herbology. Now I just watch the sun, in anticipation for the pull of the moon, dragging me one day closer to release.

Memories of others skate through my mind on days where I’ve been given meat in my broth. I try and remember the trickle of laughter, the weight of a hand on my shoulder. My mother’s embrace.

Sometimes, I think of Potter. Tattered clothes and dirt-covered hair and thin limbs. Dead and then not. While I am not, and longing for dead.

I can hear Him on the steps, his heavy boots announcing his arrival. My body begins to shake, and I will it not to, beg it to resist it’s most primal instinct. _Do not show fear_ , the voice of my father fills my ears and I clench my fists, hoping to look intimidating.

As if I do not fear the dying, or the cell, or Him.

He is one of the left behind. I do not know who he has lost, whether it was a wife, or a brother, or a daughter. Whoever it was, it was at my hands. He has appointed me to serve penance for all of the sins.

The rusty bars clink as they shift open, and He steps in. I back into the wall, as though the solid concrete will protect me, as though I can possibly prevent any of this.

He pulls out his wand, and the room fills with green, and I think, and I pray that this is it. I close my eyes, welcoming the darkness. Welcoming death.

When I open them, the room is filled with blinding light, and I wonder, as a warm heat soaks into my bones, if this is the afterlife, and if so, which side of the coin claimed my soul.

 _Draco,_ I hear my name, whispered like a prayer, and I glance, my eyes filling with green again.

Potter.

 _Am I dead,_ I ask him, and I don’t know which answer I want anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much, Marina, for always sharing your poetry with me. This is angsty, but I know you're alright with that!  
> Thank you to the wonderful mods, esp. writcraft, for putting this minifest together.


End file.
